“Already! Your presence here--the additional forces that _you_
bring--are known and recognised! See, how complete we are--a unit--you,
she and I--a trinity!”
A coldness not of this world touched me as I heard. But that first
sense of joy and beauty followed. I felt it true--the three of us were
somehow one.
“You saw it too?” I asked, exhilaration still about me.
“They are everywhere and close,” he whispered quickly, as the running
figure came on toward us, “breaking out into visible manifestation
even. Hold yourself strong and steady. Remember, your attitude of mind
and feeling are important. Each detail of behaviour is significant.”
His anxiety, I realised, was for us, not for himself. Already, it
seemed, our souls were playing vital rôles in some great dramatic
ceremonial just beginning. What we did and felt and thought was
but a partial expression of something going forward with pregnant
completeness behind the visible appearances all round. Mrs. LeVallon
stood breathless in front of us. She was hatless, her hair becomingly
dishevelled; her arms bare to the elbow and white with flour. She
stopped, placed her hands upon her hips, and panted for a full minute
before she could get breath enough to speak. Her eyes, a deep, luminous
sea-green, looked into ours. Her face was pale, yet the emotion was
excitement rather than alarm. I was aware of a superb, nymph-like
grace and charm about her. I caught my breath. Julius made no movement,
spoke no word. I wondered. I made a step forward to catch her. But she
did not fall; she merely sank down upon the ground at our feet.
“Julius,” she panted, “that thing I’ve dreamed about so of_t_en----”
She stopped short, glancing up at me, the eyes, charged with a sweet
agitation, full upon my own. I turned to Julius with a gesture of
uncontrollable impatience.
He spoke calmly, sitting down on the slope beside her. “You felt it
again--the effect of your vivid dreaming? Or did you this time--see
anything?”
The swiftness and surprise of the little scene had been bewildering,
but the moment he spoke confusion and suspense both vanished. The sound
of his quiet voice restored the threatened balance. Peace came back
into the sunlight and the air. There was composure again.
“You certainly were not frightened!” he added, as she made no reply.
“You look too happy and exhilarated for that.” He put his hand on hers.
I sat down then beside her, and she turned and looked at me with a
pathetic mingling of laughter and agitation still in her wide-opened
eyes. The three of us were close together. He kept his hand on hers.
Her shoulder touched me. I was aware of something very wonderful there
between us. We comforted her, but it was more, far more, than that.
There was sheer, overflowing happiness in it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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